The dream of 600 or 700 apartments in the best location is now apparently over, and offices for around 2,500 employees no longer seem to be realistic. In the spectacular large-scale project that the investor Ralf Büschl from Grünwald wanted to realize on the site of the wholesale market in Sendling, the only thing that should be rebuilt is what was always planned: a new hall for the fruit and vegetable traders.
According to information from the SZ, the investor should only be pursuing a basic version of his plans when submitting his offer. first had the Evening News reported about it. The planned apartments and business premises on the roof of the hall should no longer be seriously up for debate. The responsible municipal department does not want to comment specifically at the moment, and many pages of the offer still have to be checked. This was submitted “on time”, a spokeswoman only confirmed. It also provides for “several variants”.
In city politics, however, it is assumed that only the basic version is suitable for Büschl at the moment. The inflation, the increased construction costs and the specifications according to the “socially just use of land” (Sobon), according to which 50 percent of the apartments on the roof of the wholesale market hall are to be offered as price-reduced or subsidized units, probably ruined Büschl’s actual plans, it is said. His spokesman only said that the words of the municipal department had nothing to add.
The planning department announced that it would like to “check the concept with its market halls and planning department functionally and in terms of urban planning and present it to the city council for a decision as soon as possible”. The dealers and the district committee should also be involved. The city council could probably deal with the next steps in September at the earliest. A new tender for the construction of the wholesale market hall, as the parliamentary group ÖDP/Munich Liste is now demanding, is probably not an issue in the municipal department: “The publicly visible tender of the state capital – as decided by the city council – made the construction of a wholesale market hall mandatory, other uses were optional.” , the statement said. The word “optional” is in bold in it.
The building intention of the investor Büschl, which has shrunk considerably, is a new turn in a discussion that has been going on for years. It has been clear for many years that the current wholesale market is ailing and that new buildings are urgently needed. The maintenance alone devours enormous sums of money. The city has budgeted 30 million euros to maintain operational safety until 2030. Financial experts expect even higher sums. Years ago, the municipal department, at that time still under the leadership of Axel Markwardt, had presented the concept for a new wholesale market to be built by the city itself.
In 2017, however, the then coalition of CSU and SPD rejected this as unsuitable and instead decided to hire a private investor. Since then, the goal has been for the new wholesale store to go into operation by 2030 at the latest. In 2020, a company already active there, the Munich Wholesale Market (UGM), presented a plan for a gigantic new building consisting of a wholesale market and an office complex on top. However, the UGM proved to be overwhelmed with the implementation, and the project was taken over by the Büschl Group.
The only applicant in a Europe-wide tender for the redesign of the wholesale store: Investor Ralf Büschl.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
The Büschl Group emerged as the only applicant from a Europe-wide tendering process for the construction of a wholesale store plus possible other uses. Büschl himself had announced the plan to build apartments there early on. At the beginning of this year it was announced that there should be 600 to 700 apartments, half of them subsidized or reduced in price, and the construction of a new office building also came into play. The Büschl Group has apparently said goodbye to this.
The largest faction in the city council, Die Grünen/Pink Liste, reacted with surprise on Tuesday. Nothing has been known about this so far and they now want to make an appointment with the Büschl Group to have the current status explained to them. The Greens have always been skeptical about the investor solution. But now they don’t want to say goodbye to it in a new U-turn. “The project crashed years ago,” says Green City Councilor Anna Hanusch, referring to the decision by the CSU and SPD in 2017. Now she is calling for the investor model to move forward as quickly as possible. Hanusch also emphasizes: “The core of the tender was always about the construction of a wholesale store.”